


Do You Remember Me?

by joonfired



Series: Mandorin [4]
Category: The Mandalorian (LadyIrina AU), The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fic Divergence, Baby Yoda Acquisition, Corin makes his choice, Force Visions, Gen, Inspired by Fanfiction, M/M, ManDadlorian, The Mandalorian S1E3, because diverging from LadyIrina fic canon, because we're all several layers of fic meta down thanks to Corin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22003132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonfired/pseuds/joonfired
Summary: Corin didn't think he'd see them again or that they'd cause him to betray the armor he's been raised to wear
Relationships: Baby Yoda & Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret), Baby Yoda & Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret) & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret)/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), The Client & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), The Mandalorian/Corin
Series: Mandorin [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569676
Comments: 18
Kudos: 357





	Do You Remember Me?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyIrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ice and luck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21594913) by [LadyIrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/pseuds/LadyIrina). 
  * Inspired by [Rescue and Regret](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648874) by [LadyIrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/pseuds/LadyIrina). 



> I just had this idea where Corin is one of the four troopers guarding the Client okay  
> and it all spiraled from there

Corin doesn’t know what side of luck got him assigned here. He doesn’t know much about the assignment either except it is Very Important and this crusty old Imperial is part of a larger mystery.

What Corin does know is that he really doesn’t like this planet. It’s hot and stinky and snowless.

Stars, he misses snow.

Also, he had to trade his snow gear for one of these battered sets of armor that, no matter how many times he’s taken a scrub cloth to it, he can’t erase the grime. So while this assignment was spun as a promotion, it feels like one of the worst demotions he could ever dream up.

Kriff, he’d probably take garbage duty over this!

“Keep sharp and stay prepared,” the Imperial says, swooping into the room like a dingy bird of prey. “Our esteemed hunter has returned.”

Corin looks over at his companion for information, but the other trooper ignores him. They’ve all ignored him, even without their armor during meal times or in the fresheners. And when he doesn’t get an answer this time either, he sighs internally and readies his blaster.

When in doubt, become the perfect soldier. That’s kept him in good luck so far . . .

Except that one time, when he betrayed all of his training for a masked stranger and his odd child. But even that still feels like some kind of good luck, so Corin doesn’t see it is bad. Just . . .  _ different _ .

But when the same stranger and child enter the dim room, he wonders if the luck they bring him is the bad kind. Because if such a man can give this small child away so easily, surely he can’t be good.

The Imperial and his nervous doctor are beyond pleased to see the child, fawning over it in a way that makes Corin inexplicably uncomfortable. So he looks back at the masked stranger, armored like the troopers but carrying himself proudly under the concealing weight.

Corin is not proud of his armor.

“What are you going to do with it?” the stranger asks.

“That is the not the guild way, is it, Mandalorian?” the Imperial replies sharply.

Corin blinks. This stranger is a Mandalorian? Ah . . . that explained the armor. The reason he is still here to claim the beskar prize when, were Corin in his shoes, he would not trade the child away so easily.

But the deal is made and the stranger walks away.

The child goes with the doctor, who the Imperial then asks Corin to shadow.

“I do not trust him,” he is told in that rasping voice. “Make sure he does not follow his own plans and steals the child for himself.”

Corin nods wordlessly and startles the doctor in his laboratory. The child is sedated on a table, a med-bot hovering ominously over it.

“Do you need something?” Pershing asks.

“No,” Corin says. “I was just told to be here.”

“Ah.” The doctor’s shoulders slump and he seems . . . sad? “Even after all these years, he still doesn’t trust me with his plans.”

“Is there a reason for that?” Corin blurts.

The doctor laughs softly, reaching to touch the top of the child’s head. “No. But trust never came easy to him. Even with me.”

The way he talks about the Imperial suddenly has Corin thinking perhaps they are more than co-conspirators in this mysterious scheme that hinges so much on the acquisition of the child.

The doctor then tilts his head at Corin, eyes narrowing in curiosity. 

“You’re oddly talkative for a trooper.”

Corin shrugs. “This is a very odd place to find Imperial strength.”

“Yes, we all have our oddities, don’t we?” the doctor muses, turning back to the child.

~

Some time later, the doctor is gone and the med-bot is powered down. Corin remains because he’d rather be here than somewhere else and given new orders. Also, he doesn’t like the thought of leaving the child alone.

“Why are you so important, little one?” Corin wonders, taking advantage of the empty room to walk up to the child.

Its features are passive under sedation, although Corin thinks he sees a shred of discomfort hovering somewhere in the fluttering of its eyelids. He reaches instinctively for the child, some part of him hoping one touch can give this small creature some scrap of comfort.

“Do you remember me?” he whispers.

His gloved fingers brush the wrinkled, fuzzy head.

And his vision is pushed aside by scattered darkness, spinning him dizzy.

Corin tries to blink, but isn’t sure if the action occurred. Pieces of images float through his mind like new memories, staying long enough for him to sense them but not long enough for him to grasp.

Fingers curling around a warm, bare wrist with the sensation of hope and longing. He is then flung against a hidden barrier, a presence looming in front of him that he is both terrified and excited by.

“ _ Ner cyar’ika _ ,” voice murmurs somewhere close to his ear, or maybe from lips burning against his neck?

His shoulder is heavy with a new weight and Corin sees a strange pauldron shining before the image shudders into the child looking up at him with trusting eyes.

The child . . .

Corin falls back with a yelp, reality crashing around him. The strange pictures float in his mind as he gapes through his helmet at the sleeping child.

It felt so  _ real _ .

He’d felt so . . . at home.

“What the hell?” he whispered.

What was that? What happened? What did he see?

_ Why _ did he see it? And how?

Pershing bursts into the room followed by the low blare of an alarm. His frantic eyes find Corin before he rushes for the child.

“We’re under attack!” he pants.

Attack?

Corin is still stunned by whatever happened when he touched the child, his senses slow to react. He blinks stupidly at the doctor, who then shrieks, “Don’t just stand there, soldier! Protect the child!”

Protect the child. Yes, that sounds right and good.

Corin runs into the dark hallway, his night-vision starting up in his helmet view. He switches his blaster from safety to stun, the lifeform sensors telling him there is a conflict happening a few rooms down.

He finds the stranger battling his fellow troopers, and it doesn’t seem like a fair fight . . . towards the troopers. They are systematically, efficiently taken down with a cool, terrifying ease.

He doesn’t stand a chance.

“We’re on our way, CT-113,” a comm is directed into his helmet. “Hold your ground.”

Corin doesn’t reply. He thinks,  _ protect the child _ .

“Out of my way,” the Imperial says, striding from a different direction towards the room where the child is being held.

_ Protect the child. _

Corin is slow to move, which means the Imperial collides roughly with him in a tangle of barked curses. Weathered, curled hands shove him aside and he careens into the wall in a clatter of plasteel.

“Stop!” he hears the doctor say. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Don’t test me, Shan,” the Imperial barks. “We cannot let him take him.”

Corin understands now —that is why the stranger has returned in a fury of burnt troopers. He’s here for the child. And something, a strange feeling like an instinct, tells him that this stranger hasn’t come to harm the child but to protect it.

And so he goes to fight . . . but not towards the direction of the oncoming Mandalorian.

Corin goes to fight for the child.

“Please,” the doctor begs the Imperial, multiple levels of pain in his gaze. “Don’t. For me.”

“The world marches on despite the beat of our hearts,” the Imperial mutters, drawing a blaster from a holster hidden by the folds of his cape.

“No!” Corin yells, slamming into the man.

It’s a small thing, but it is also momentous. His choice is now made and he can do nothing but face the consequences. This armor no longer defines him.

“You . . .” the doctor gasps.

“Traitor!” the Imperial snarls, rolling onto his back and aiming at Corin.

“I’m sorry,” Corin says.

He shoots the Imperial. The stun blast slams into the old man, throwing him back into unconsciousness.

“Erzo!” Pershing cries, stumbling for the fallen man. But he turns when he sees Corin approaching the child. “Wait. Stop! What are you doing?”

Corin isn’t given the chance to answer, because the stranger arrives in a whirl of glinting steel and fierce strides. He grabs him by the chestplate and delivers one smashing blow to the side of Corin’s helmet before there is any chance to react.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Corin yelps, dropping his blaster and throwing his hands up. “I’m helping you!”

“No, you’re not,” the Mandalorian says in a flat, scary tone.

“Yes, stop, wait,” he gasps, fumbling for his helmet release. Corin unbuckles and lifts his helmet, tossing it aside with a clatter. “It’s me. From the snowstorm. Ice planet. Remember?”

Vaguely a part of his mind chides him for removing his helmet, since the Mandalorian has never seen him without it. They were on a planet of ice for kriff’s sake, so why in the stars would he have taken off his built-in heater?

Well, hopefully it will be good luck to show he means no harm by making himself vulnerable here.

“You?” the Mandalorian tilts his head at a curious angle. “Oh, you.”

Something about the way he says that reminds Corin of his strange visions, and another tiny part of him wonders if the voice he heard belonged to this man.

“Is this just another survival tactic from a coward too afraid to fight?” the Mandalorian asks.

“No. Not anymore.” Corin swallows his fear as best he can, but he is afraid it still shows. “This is me doing the right thing.”

The Mandalorian doesn’t say anything, just considers him mysteriously behind that silver mask.

“There’s a lot of Imperial weight still floating in the galaxy,” Corin ventures. “You could use someone like me to help you avoid it.”

There is a soft coo from the child behind them, and the Mandalorian looks over Corin’s shoulder at it. Something about the angle of his shoulders and the tilt of his helmet gives the impression of a softened expression, and that goes straight to Corin’s heart for a reason he can’t yet explain or understand.

“Fine,” the Mandalorian says, shoving him aside so he can scoop up the child. “But if I catch one hint of you turning against me . . . that’s it.”

He strides to the doorway and Corin follows, but before they enter the hall, the Mandalorian turns to him.

“I don’t trust you,” the Mandalorian snaps.

Corin smiles. “I know.”

But maybe . . . maybe someday he will.

**Author's Note:**

> so I, uh, totally made Pershing and the Client something *coughs*  
> and Erzo is just part of Herzog aka the actor for the Client  
> and Shan is the first name I made up for Pershing
> 
> also yes I've scrapped some of the fic canon from Ice and Luck to create this fic  
> please don't totally hate me
> 
> no there won't be follow-up chapters  
> but this just got stuck in my brain and I needed to write it
> 
> also that Force Vision is absolutely derived from fic canon from LadyIrina's AU  
> except the small lil Mando'a part that is my hopes for their future mwhahahaha


End file.
